The final day of a three-show run. Known for the goof-off opening, a good Shakedown and Brent's spontaneous Hey Jude, which became a thang. People must be curious - there are fifteen sources on the archive, yet for the better show the day before there's no SBD or matrix. Some shows I can remember. We had scored four tix for the previous shows but twelve for this one, even though Saturday was harder to get. So we invited half newbies and I got to miracle the cat that put me on the bus many years before. Plus our section accumulated some tour friends. I'd gone solo and with a few people, usually seeing a few acquaintances. But I'd never had this much of a row. At the time I thought it was the lesser-most show I had seen (though balls-to-the-wall fun), but I knew someone that thought it was their best! Goony Bird had gotten into our group and it was frowny shite for a couple hours, challenging those that were going uphill, arms crossed or pawing, struggling for the meadow at the end of the tunnel a couple hours down the road. With heads full of iffy Goony, at their first show, the opening gambit blew minds in the not-typical way and they naturally turned to me for steering (Is this the concert? This is what everybody talks about?). But all I could do was grin. You just go with it. You pass the test. You turn pro. One old hippie friend was highly entertained with teasing my newbie wife with a bunch of imaginary rules of the scene, until she got wise to him. I wasn't perplexed by Bobby's song nearly as much as Mickey's kazoo playing. People were losing it. I zoned safely. When the "real" show started it was like a storm lifted. Everything has normalized...uh, you know, more or less. Then a real storm came! Between sets they had to put a tarp over the soundboard (right behind us) and as the wind blew and temps dropped about 20 degrees (normal at 6400') non-combatants, mutants and friendlies were walking around going "they're not coming back!" "Yes they are"). By night's end some of the cats we brought stepped right on the bus, found a seat and enjoyed the scenery. Others "made their decision to follow routines" as Garcia once put it.

Supposedly Owsley was the dude helping Healy but I didn't know what he looked like and it may have been a rumor. My friend and I had run into Walton a few days earlier and more than a hundred miles away. It didn't occur to me where he was going so we did NOT talk about the Dead. He was on crutches. When he suddenly appeared in our row I couldn't figure out if he recognized us but at that point it was full-on Deadersize anyway. The scene/vibe changed noticeably for Saturday - a different ratio of onlookers-to-tourers, with a higher percentage of weekenders, locals, yuppies* (well, good for them), and regional campus types, and with hundreds more diehard shutouts seeking miracles and later dancing in the lots to piped Jerrr-reeee. The crowd was restless by 3pm. Saturday was a zoo. Tired of it annually, the Morrison locals had petitioned to stop the shows. The compromise was to change to a 2pm showtime, which was why the tix were stamped. This night, the band pushed back, starting late, goofing off for 10 minutes (the contract and its agreements do not start until all bandmembers are onstage), and taking a long set break, ultimately using the lights on this night after sunset. It may have been the crew's decision or may have involved equipment, but the "Jerry's dealer made him late" comments are sophomoric. For rainout back-up, the org had people at CU Events Center. June/July are the trickier months at the acoustically-poor Red Rocks, and the late-summer blackness that blew through was swept away with Jerry's broom.


First Set. After a late start, Bobby comes out. Nobody knows what's going on and Healy fucks with his voice. There are perhaps a few people that knew The Frozen Logger, but mainly nobody knew WTF was going on or what he was singing - or why. Especially with sound effects from the board. He had played it a handful of times in '70/71. After a few minuted it's ditched. A while later (most sources trim this gap), Mickey and some tricksters (crew, friends, it's fuzzy) came out with kazoos and slidewhistles and performed (sorta) the Star Spangled Banner with Healy adding birds. After several minutes of this the boys took their places and started Half-step, ending what was a mixture of laughter, confusion and horror. Peace was upon the land. It's uptempo - and will be, the whole show. Minglewood is hot - one of the best I saw (Denver fillies/T right here in Denver). It's careening, and when it sounds like it's going to be slide practice, it turns nifty. Brown Eyed is fine (weirdly, after this I had a ten yr gap between BEWs, often missing by one night). Loser is fantastic - it's Bobby that's having the great night. It sounds like he teases Stranger but instead it's relative rarity Dupree's. One More Saturday is strong and sends 'em to break happy. Jer wasn't as good this night but the weirdness and tempo made a lot of heads happy.

Second Set. Some have cited this Shakedown Street as a standout. It does have some really nice parts. But it's not, say, 6/30. Crazy Fingers is a bit of a struggle. The end jam for Samson & Delilah brings things back, with Jer fireworks over Bobby slide. With the next Jerry song, it's back to rough - Bobby audibly cues him for UJB lyrics. The day before, Jer had chided Bobby for starting off too fast and now he's getting revenge, starting the Playing way uptempo; and the drummers acquiesce. It gets real spacey - kind of a free-for-all, but it works, in a taste-of-'72. Drums is great, with Mickey on his beam and all the toys that he brought to Red Rocks in the '80s. Space is great, too - don't skip these. Coming out of Dear Mr. Fantasy is the "first" Hey Jude. Technically Brent's first; they had actually played it twice in '69. But only trainspotters toting their Compendiums knew this back then. People went nuts and we just thought it was cool to witness a brief moment of Dead history. I saw other first-time-playeds that got little response. I guess it's because everybody knows Hey Jude; but you wouldn't drive hundred of miles and stand in line for hours twice, for a snippet of a cover of a Beatles song. Next comes a Bobby word-fest, so what does Jer do? He challenges Bobby's mouthfuls by taking off at a pace that prevents even his own usual fills. But Bobby does well and the drummers have tightened up. Comes a Time is above average; the rest isn't (though Jer has one of his best turns of the run during Lovelight). Another uptempo set for a speedy show.

1st Set:  B
2nd Set: C+
Overall = 3½ stars

Highlights:
New Minglewood Blues - careening then clicks into place
Loser - Bobby is glue
Shakedown Street - some excellent parts
Drums>Space - one of the skullcappers; the foothills melted

SOURCES: The updated, patched SBD is the sbd-pcm_miller_33954. However it is pitched slightly fast and needs -1%. It's also missing part of the opening. The seamons_fix_92521 is a remastered matrix with a rich image and the complete opening. All sources seem to run fast, with some AUDs running @ +2%. If ever there was a tape I looked forward to getting it was this one. I wanted to relive it to see what happened and recompile. I had the Morris AUD, but sorta low gen. It's here in all its glory (pitched too fast and with part of the opening cut). The best AUD is the sacks_29305 of the Oade source. The complete first set is:
The Frozen Logger
Star Spangled Birds
Mississippi Half-Step
New Minglewood Blues
Brown Eyed Women
My Brother Esau
Loser
Dupree's Diamond Blues
One More Saturday Night

*Look it up, kids

I challenge anyone to listen to the last 2 minutes of Track 14, drums, with headphones, and not conclude that the world is ending, that something awful is coming for you. Scared me straight, yo

I've been listening to a lot of 85 lately on archive and there's some shows I'd love to have. Is there anyone out there that can help me get a hold of some vintage 85's? I don't know the "ropes" of this very well and could use some guidance. rlocke84@hotmail.com

This was the last of the 3 day shows at Red Rocks. Beautiful weather. Bright blue Colorado sky. Incredible time and place.
I thought the whole Logger thing with Jerry breaking a string was possibly staged. I could be wrong and I guess it doesn't really matter.
It was cool to see them all laughing and having fun. This whole scene just added more fuel to the fire for me moving to Colorado a year later. This pesronally was the most fun Red Rocks run!

Deadbase lists the 8/11-13/87 run as the last shows
Dont know the circumstances but everything after these shows are in McNichols Sport Crapreena. Which as anyone knows is like comparing the cementive I70 & I25 interchange, to the... well ..to the...RED ROCKS!!
There is little comparison

This show is a pretty standard three star show. Very little stuck out, good or bad. The Crazy Fingers is nice, but the Frozen Logger will probably make your ears shed tears.

Pretty unremarkable show, but it could be a whole lot worse.

You know what they say "if you remember the 60's you weren't there". Well I was at this show
but was somewhat out of my head and had never heard the recording of it. The frozen logger sent me up into the rocks way up behind the audience where i spent most of the show dancing with a few other wide eyed freaks as the music came surging up the ravine.
It is hard to describe what it was like hearing Brown Eyed and many of my absolutely favorite
songs as I was gazing out over just about the entire Nation.
I will also say that they put my favorite Album BLIND FAITH on the PA at REDROCKS that weekend.
I will give you my reasons for giving this a five
1)The band is loose as hell, lots of laughing, talking, banter, the whole logger thing is like a flashback to the acid tests.Yet by the time they get into the show you can hear a pindrop as the music plays the band.
2)The playing is tight, the reason 1985 was a good
year was because the dead really tore into the tunes,they took care of business.You can hear on this soundboard that everyone is in the mix!
3)tune selection-set 1 >All the jerry tunes are classics. ESSAU>Almost extinct.Saturday Night>Closing first set usually a good omen
"Ron, it is SATURDAY NIGHT"
Set two-What more could you want in a second set? Shakedown>Fingers>Samson, (I was dancin so hard during Samson i almost fell off the ridgeline) Uncle Johns>Playing (I thought about what the future would hold that day, the Cold War was still
going on, lots of hate & turmoil, people choosing materialism over peace and love, yet I felt good here was this band that put me in touch with feelings and emotions that transcended the petty rat race, The Playing is moving real fast, nice jam into drums and it was at this show that I began to get into Brent- Fantasy>Hey Jude>Fantasy and then how about Truckin>Comes A Time>LOVELIGHT! add a two song encore JohnnyB>Baby BLUE
You know in real estate how they say location! location! location! well that does not always work
for the DEAD but if you go sit on a mountaintop and listen to this show YOU WILL GET IT!(Do it with headphones so you don't mess with Mother Nature.)

When was the last red rocks show?

This place almost always drew out the magic

Check the 82 run- esp middle night of three- i posted comments there too

Awesome, this Red Rocks 85- one of the few from post 83 i listen to on tape.


but as for Live, i saw some EPIC shows up till 91, or so

maybe the last i saw, eugene 93? That was great too!

I saw em from late middle career( 79) onwards

yea, trend was gradually down, but gems occcured still- up till the last few years- post hornsby perhaps- after that went downhill it was sad

i bet they could have gotten hot again if Garcia had sobered up, gotten healthy and had a second wind.

This show is pretty damn good. I have listened to many shows, and honestly thing that '89 is one of there best overall years. Especially summer to early fall, some pretty unbelievable stuff.

Mydland is that man.

I became a 'head late in the game, but have definitely heard the lot of shows, in various format. As a younger listener, I have to agree that post 85 is iffy, at best. I saw those later shows, and although I was honored and privelged to be in the presence of the boys, many shows were simply hard to watch. Sorry, its the truth.

this imo is a typical 85 with a comical logger at the beginning but other than that i remeber a decent ms toodeloo brent is on like always and jerrys singing well from what i remember i prefered one of the other nights i havent listened in a while but i dont remember nething else that stands out

***must agree with purplegel i am younger and regretfully never saw the dead in their prime but the late 80s def had some moments and even in 90 but after that it was like nuclear halocaust i dont even listen to nething really after that (not to be a snob but they just are terrible) no brent, vince (lol), i think jerry got more lyrics wrong than right his voice was god awful and was always nodding out good thing his guitar had a built in MIDI i mean it is still great music(rarely) but compared to their former selves an absolute joke u must admit deterioration and apathy were taking there toll. esp the last show how can ne body give it higher than a 1 it was horrible just plz folks this isnt about being pretenious or elitist but for the younger folks and people getting into this the next generation that doesnt know much and they probably look at the stars and reviews dont give it high ratings on accounts of sentiments just asking to be critical bc thats what this review is about b/c honestly some nights they just sucked!!sorry

I have dl this two times about eight months apart and each time there is serious crackling on d1t1. Any body else?

While these shows are certainly very good for the time, I have to agree with Lesh69. There is a lot of love for post '85, more than the period merits. I find the rating system for this era to be out of whack, I hove found very few 5 star shows after 1985.The last 10 years, for me were dissapointing, and it was obvious that Jerry was declining and it was hard and sad to watch him deteriorate before our eyes. It does seem that most of the folks here are younger heads who love late Dead and appreciate the classics as well. While I certainly understand the propensity to prefer the shows you were at, I think there is far too much love for later shows here, compared to what IMHO is one of the best periods, Fall 1979-Fall 1982. .

This is a great drum and space with fun beam and Jerry Spanishy sequences. Digitally clipped problem areas after the marimbas can be patched with AUD sections.

I was in London for these shows and could not make it however, this is excellent in every respect but first set is pretty short.

This was a great show, Hard to believe it was almost 20 years ago. I was danceing with a beautiful hippie chick I would later meet and become friends wtih, we had just looked into each others eyes when the band transitioned into Hey Jude. I still get goose bumps. Christina Ernst if your out there give me a call:)

to Moonshadow's review. I wasn't in a fight but my relationship with my companion amongst other things were on a definite slide, yet I didn't miss any of the shows. Since these have been thoroughly reviewed I'd say this one was the overall best and certainly lived up to the level of the other two years I saw them here, '79 & '82. I may elaborate further, later but, some of you may be sick of my numerous reviews. I got to go eat lunch now.
If you haven't heard this one, well like I said elsewhere, it has stiff competition during this year, but most assuredly it holds it's own charm. Well enough for her and I and I can't imagine anyone there who didn't enjoy the experience, regardless of one's personel ups or downs !

As much as I love the sound and feel of good AUD recordings, esp. the Oade recordings here, I have to say that for this show, this SBD recording is the better download. Just my opinion...

Classic show in any format. I remember hearing the Logger on the Dead Hour... Gans linked it up to the Shakedown, and you can hear why. One of my favorite versions of Shakedown St.

My girlfriend at the time and I had gotten into a huge fight the night before this show and I ended up spending the night in my truck. I woke up that morning, ate breakfast at some greasy spoon, and I was simply in a foul mood. It was the third of three shows and I decided to blow the the last day off. I was driving up I-70, on my way back to the mountians where I lived at the time when I changed my mind, turned around and headed for Red Rocks. I showed up just as the show started and I remember hearing the first couple of songs on the hike up the hill. I was still kind of grouchy at the break, but I ran into some friends who invited me to join them.. and they had pretty good seats...just above the sound board and off to the side a bit. The second set started and it felt like a 10 ton weight was lifted from my shoulders. Not only was the music fantastic, but the feeling it gave me that day is undescribable. For years after I had an audience recorded cassette of the show that I would listen to when I was feeling down and it always perked me up. That beloved cassette "sprouted legs" at a party in about '94 and all I had left was the memories of that day and how that music affected me in such a profound way.

Times have changed and I have moved from the mountians to the sea. I live on a sailboat, currently in the Sea of Cortez. I found this website, and this show, and I was actually nervous about hearing it again. After hearing this story, my present girlfriend downloaded the show to her computer, burned a cd, and pulled it out of her bag and stuck it into the boat cd player (without saying anything first) one afternoon on a sail from San Evaristo to Bahia Aqua Verde. The music was even better than I had remembered, and it still gives me that special feeling!! What a treat, what a show, what a great band, and what a great website this is...Thanks

Obviously a great show to be there but in the summer of '89 I nearly drowned in a canoe crossing a river in New Jersey to obtain a pack of cigarettes. In my pocket was a 100 min.sony metal cassette of the second set of this show. To this day it still plays like what was perfect sbd at the time. Now I live 15 minutes from Red Rocks. Ted in Denver

Best show I ever attended. Totally blew my mind.
I remember talking about it with friends before the show, we knew it was going to be fantastic and it was. The Rocks on a sunny day was awesome.
FYI - Mickey and I think Phil were playing a kazoo and horn off stage (but within view) during Frozen Logger. It was a riot, and hint of the show to come.

My folks used to play an old Odetta album for me when I was about 5 years old that had a great version of "The Frozen Logger" on it. I can still see that red translucent vinyl in my mind when I hear Bobby butcher that tune. The distortion in the background and the strange clown horns give this a uniquely Grateful Dead sound. Well worth a listen.

I can't seem to get these files to convert after downloading and attempting numerous times. This is an excellent show and I am looking forward to hearing it again.

Thanks for all the hard work!

This 3rd day of the Red Rocks 1985 run ranks as one of the best outdoor concerts I have ever witnessed, and until now I had only a shoddy old analog AUD of it. This beautiful, clean, and solid SBD brings it all back - from the lunacy of the Frozen Logger that showed the band to be having as much fun as those of us between the Rocks, to the bouncy-steppin' Shakedown St, followed by a sparkling Crazy Fingers that sounds for a few golden moments like the Dead of the early '70s. The whole 2nd set really flows with pure Dead goodness. One of the great latter-day Grateful Dead concerts in a world-class setting, in a crispy SBD format. YUMMY!

Lpenoza